With 15 Nominations including 7 for the 2018 Davide di Donatello Awards and screened in over 20 Film Festival around the world The Place marks the much anticipated return of Director Paolo Genovese in a position to do something daring, pulling an ambitious and metaphorical film which ask the audience one single yet weighty question: how far would you go to get what you want? A mysterious man (brought to life by Valerio Mastandrea) is sitting in a bar, named The Place, day and night, with a schedule full of meetings, he waits for his “clients” who ask him to help them realize their sometimes impossible desires. The nameless man asks them to do something in return, an action that looks disproportionate to the expressed desire. To achieve their dreams, the clients must be willing to do everything, including terrible acts, while their stories eventually start to intertwine. Once the deal is settled, they cannot negotiate, but only deliver or give up. The man doesn’t force them to act, leave them the choice of deciding what is right and what is wrong, he observes without judging. To become more beautiful, to spend a night with a porn star, to save a son, to regain sight, and to find God, are just some of the wishes that the various characters in the film reveal to the man at the bar. “It can be done,” he answers as he writes quickly in his large planner, filled with notes in every corner of every page, but there is a price. A price that is very high in some cases: stealing a large sum of money, putting a bomb in a room, raping a woman… If the task is achieved, success is guaranteed. It will be up to them to decide whether or not to accept the agreement. The waitress at The Place (Sabrina Ferilli) is the only one who has an equal standing with the unknown man: fascinated by his silence and secrecy, she talks to him after the bar closes for the night to understand who he is and what exactly his job is. She slowly manages to get under the skin of such a melancholic and emotionless man, who might even have some compassion for the people who come to sit at his table. Is he God? The devil? Or, perhaps, our very own conscience?
IN ITALIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES.